After Supervisor Joe Simitian announced Wednesday that the county’s Housing Authority would join the fight to preserve the Buena Vista Mobile Home Park as a refuge for the working class in Palo Alto, a reporter asked him what it meant. Enough big words. What was his spin?

“I think it’s a game-changer,” said Simitian, who explained that the Housing Authority would bring new tools to the effort. “I’m more optimistic than I’ve been for the last 18 months.”

Simitian and Katherine Harasz, the executive director of the Housing Authority, were careful about imparting too much information on the total dollars needed to save the park, which is home to more than 400 people, primarily low-income Latinos.

Perhaps the most significant piece of the news conference at Palo Alto City Hall was that Santa Clara County and the city of Palo Alto, which have each pledged $14.5 million to buy the park, now have a third partner willing to invoke the power of eminent domain.

In the chess game that will determine the fate of the park in south Palo Alto, the team led by Simitian has made a dramatic move with a rook, threatening to break a legal stalemate with the Jisser family, which hopes to close the park and see the land developed for higher-income residents.

The key to understanding this — no surprise — lies with the politics: Eminent domain is not a universally popular option. It has a way of creating trouble for elected officials who invoke it. When government seizes land, even at a fair price, it creates hard feelings.

Public use

The Jissers’ attorney, Larry Salzman, of the Pacific Legal Foundation, told the Palo Alto Daily News that taking one owner’s property and turning it over for the benefit of private citizens violates the Fifth Amendment because the property won’t actually be for public use.

“I don’t see how anyone’s property in Silicon Valley is safe on that rationale,” Salzman said. “The alleged justification that the county just needs more affordable housing justifies virtually taking anyone’s property and turning it into affordable housing.”

But unlike the Board of Supervisors or the Palo Alto City Council, the members of the Housing Authority are appointed by the supervisors, not elected. That means they can vote for eminent domain without having to face election opponents. And they seem willing to do so.

Of course, it may not come to that. The city, county and Housing Authority may sit down with the Jisser family and reach a deal that satisfies everyone. Rationality could prevail over greed. Sure. And I could learn how to play the cello, speak Serbo-Croatian, and fly to the moon.

Appraisal

The next step, county and city officials explained, is an appraisal that would determine the value of the property, which is currently zoned as RM-15, which translates into eight to 15 units per acre. That would help determine how much the Housing Authority would contribute.

Palo Alto Mayor Pat Burt told me that eminent domain proceedings, if they happen, would take precedence over the current litigation between the Jisser family and the city.

If so, the Buena Vista would be saved sooner rather than later, which is in almost everyone’s interest. In this game of chess, however, the other side hasn’t nearly surrendered.

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